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Jaime Fuller

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In most of the country, the Cheney name is deeply unpopular. People poke fun at Joe Biden and mock Al Gore, but Dick Cheney stands as one of the most hated and vilified Vice Presidents since Spiro Agnew. And if Republicans have abandoned George W. Bush, then in the case of Cheney, they’ve worked to erase him from their memory of the last administration. All of this is why it’s odd that his daughter, Liz Cheney, has emerged as a viable candidate for the Wyoming Senate seat currently held by Mike Enzi. Now, it is true that the Cheneys are a long-time fixture in a state known for its conservative politics. But that only explains the viability of Cheney as a candidate. It says nothing about her reason for running. In fact, it’s hard to think of one. Enzi is a model conservative, with doctrinaire stances on most issues. There’s no reason to challenge him. Even still, conservative activists like Erick Erickson have lined up behind Cheney , who seems to be running for the sake of running...

In the wake of innumerable warnings of disaster and accusations of bad faith, Democrats and Republicans did something unusual today: they came to agreement on how to do business, at least for a while. The topic was the filibuster, which used to be something the minority party used in extraordinary circumstances, but in the hands of Republicans has become a hurdle every single substantial piece of legislation and nominee has to jump. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid basically got fed up and told Republicans that if they didn't allow votes on three of President Obama's languishing nominees—Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Thomas Perez to be Secretary of Labor, and Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency—then he would move to change Senate rules and end the filibuster for executive branch nominations entirely. And in the end, the Republicans blinked, agreeing to a deal in which the filibuster rules would stay, the three nominees would...

When Mark O'Mara, one of George Zimmerman's attorneys, was asked at a news conference after his client's trial about the role race played in the case, he should have said that his client was found not guilty, and he'd leave the speculation to others. Instead, he said that if Zimmerman had been black, "he never would have been charged with a crime." Because as we all know, the criminal justice system in America is tilted in favor of black people. Sure, whites who shoot blacks are far more likely to get off than whites who kill whites, blacks who kill blacks, or blacks who kill whites (a difference that is especially wide in states with "stand your ground" laws). And sure, white people don't need to worry about being stopped and frisked for no particular reason. And sure, there's no phenomenon called "driving while white." But with that radical black nationalist in the White House, white men are on the run. As one author wrote on the Fox News website on Friday, "it is males who suffer...

The trial of George Zimmerman comes to a close today, and despite the endless hours of cable coverage, those waiting for profound insights into the state of race in America will be disappointed. Zimmerman's guilt or innocence turns on narrow questions, like who got on top of whom during a fight no one saw, not on the jury's opinions about our ongoing struggles with racism. That hasn't stopped some people from predicting that should Zimmerman be acquitted, those unruly black people will begin rampaging through the streets. Bill O'Reilly wondered whether, in the wake of an acquittal, you-know-who would "run out and cause trouble." Piers Morgan speculated that after an acquittal, "There may possibly be riots." The Washington Times ran an online poll asking, "Will there be riots in Florida if George Zimmerman receives a not-guilty verdict by a jury of his peers?" Oddly, no one wondered whether white people would start rioting if Zimmerman were convicted, despite the fact that the chances...

When you have to come out and tell reporters, "I'm not a fan of secession," you're not having a particularly good day. That's what Rand Paul found himself doing today, in the wake of revelations that one of Paul's staffers, who co-wrote (or, let's be honest, probably ghost-wrote) Paul's 2010 campaign book, also spent years as a neo-confederate shock jock advocating secession, praising the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and urging whites to be proud of their heritage. Just how is it that Rand Paul, like his father before him, keeps attracting these people? It's a mystery. Interestingly enough, this latest episode in Rand Paul's struggles with race came about because of an article in a conservative online publication, The Washington Free Beacon . (To some, this is evidence of the neo-conservative faction of conservatism's opposition to Paul's isolationism. The Free Beacon is edited by Bill Kristol's son-in-law; make of that what you will.) And for the record, the aide, Jack Hunter—...